The Dibrugarh-Kanyakumari Vivek Express was halted for around 30 minutes near Odisha's Brahmapur Station after smoke was witnessed in one of the coaches, ANI reported. A Railways officer said the incident took place due to brake binding as a sack got stuck in the wheel of a coach.
However, Railways said the smoke was not due to any mishap and the a thorough check was carried out at Brahmapur station.
"The smoke was not due to any mishap but brake binding as a sack had got stuck in a wheel of a coach. We have removed the sack from the wheel and also used a fire extinguisher. The train halted for around 15-30 minutes," ANI quoted Basanta Kumar Satpathy, Railways officer, as saying.
The Vivek Express, running from Dibrugarh in Assam to Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu, is the longest train route in the country, both in terms of distance and time. The train, along its way, crosses a total of nine states. With 58 stops, the train goes through Assam, Nagaland, Bihar, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu.
Last month, smoke emanating from the AC unit in one of the coaches on the Secunderabad-Agartala Express created panic among passengers onboard, forcing railway officials to halt the train at Odisha's Brahmapur station.
The passengers deboarded at Brahmapur station after smoke was detected in the B-5 coach of the train. The train departed from the station after the smoke was controlled.
READ | Ignoring Red Flags, Signalling Failure Led To Odisha Train Accident, Says Probe Report
The incident comes after 293 people were killed and over 1,100 people injured in a three-train collision near Baharanga Bazar station in Odisha's Balasore district on June 2.
A high-level inquiry into the tragedy by the Commissioner of Railways Safety (CRS) found "wrong signalling" to be the main reason for the accident and dismissed previous reports of a sabotage or a technical glitch.